Systems have used the explicit stated interests of one person to construct recommendations for another. For example, Person A may be connected with Person B by way of a social networking interface. The social networking interface may allow users to indicate a preference for certain consumer goods, movies, music, television shows, venues, and the like. In this case, the social network may provide recommendations to Person A based on the stated preferences of Person B. That is, Person B's preferences are directly mapped to Person B.
A recent system even suggests making “joint recommendations” in U.S. Pat. No. 7,756,753. However, this system only analyzes specific items in one user's list (e.g., shopping cart, etc) to offer those items or related items to another user. That is, recommendations are provided to individual users based on purchase history similarities with other users.
Lastly, systems are available for providing recommendations based on personality traits. For example, online dating services may develop a personal profile for a user, and provide recommendations on potential partners based on personality metrics indicating a likely favorable match. Again, these systems merely provide individualized recommendations for partners; however, such systems fail to provide harmonized recommendations based on characteristics of a group of individuals.